This invention relates to toothbrushes. Toothbrushes are well known devices generally comprising a handle by which the toothbrush is held, and a cleaning zone (commonly known as a “head”) on which tooth-cleaning elements are arranged, and which are pressed with a cleaning force against the teeth during cleaning. The head and handle define a toothbrush longitudinal handle-head direction, with a neck longitudinally between the head and handle. Tooth cleaning elements normally project from the cleaning zone in a direction transverse to the longitudinal direction, termed herein the “bristle direction”, because bristles are the most common type of cleaning element.
In particular this invention relates to a toothbrush with a cleaning zone on which tooth-cleaning elements are arranged, and with a deformable element by which the cleaning zone can be adapted to the shape of the tooth surface by the cleaning force, where the deformable element has at least a first flexible wing facing towards the cleaning zone and a second such wing facing away from the cleaning zone, and also at least one guide element, and where the first and second wings are held together moveably by the guide element.
Such a toothbrush is known for example from DE-A-101 54 969, where the toothbrush handle can be turned into an S shape of varying degree by the user's finger pressure. The toothbrush according to DE-A-101 54 969 makes it easier to clean the difficult-to-reach premolars.
The drawback of the toothbrush according to DE-A-101 54 969 and of other known toothbrushes is that complete removal of plaque from the teeth can generally not be guaranteed, even by regular brushing. For complete removal of plaque it is necessary, in addition to brushing, to use dental floss to clean the interdental spaces, for example.
The present invention is therefore based on the task of providing an improved toothbrush which cleans the teeth more effectively and at the same time more gently than known toothbrushes.